As I am getting later & later in posting so this is a quick review of last week’s punts which were a bit of a disaster.
 
1)    Stormers to beat the Chief (head to head) at $1-75 = Win
Never in doubt – I should have put the house on it (but it was by far my largest punt of the weekend).  The Stormers totally outclassed the Chiefs & made the $1-75 odds look stupid.  They are now looking the real deal this season as long as they don’t get carried away with the media hype in the Cape.
 
2)    Brumbies to beat the Hurricanes (head to head) at $1-40 = Loss
Didn’t see much of this match but it will be a very disappointing result for the Brumbies at home especially given the Canes were reduced to 14 men for 20 minutes of the game.  The form of Matt Giteau at first five eighth has been disappointing for 15 months now & his combination with Phibbs is a worry for the Brumbies.  Jury is still out on the Canes but a win in Canberra does not come easy – taking both teams 12 & under would have been the way to go.
 
3)  Blues by 12 & under at $2-80 & the Force by 12 & under at $4-50 = Loss
At the start of the season I had marked this down as a reasonably easy win for the Blues & unfortunately I was too easily influenced by recent results though you have to say that the Force’s recent win over the Stormers is a very good result.  It was an “up” week for the Blues & once again they converted a purple patch during the match into a lot of points.  As I pointed out, the difference Woodcock & Afoa would make was important.  Sometimes it is better to leave the punting to as late as possible given the starting XV is sometimes only revealed to the public at the last minute.  This is a bit of a gripe of mine but I will go into further detail at some later date.  On reflection this was a poor bet & taking the Blues to win would have been a lot more sensible.
 
4)     Reds by 12 & under at $3-10 & the Bulls by 12 & under at $2-75 = Win
A superb match that proved that you don’t need thousands of points to have a good game of footie.  I actually thought this would be quite a high scoring affair given the travel fatigue endured by the Reds & the “one foot on the plane syndrome” of the Bulls.  However the half time score of 8-7 to the Reds showed that it was likely to be a close affair.  I just had the feeling that the Reds had some momentum at half time as the Bulls were making some uncharacteristic errors & notably Fourie du Preez was not controlling things as he normally does.  The in-play odds at half time had the Reds paying $2-00 to win head to head so I took a piece of that as well.
 
5)  Sharks on the points start of 11.5 points at $1-90 = Loss
I was never really confident on this punt due to the South African derby factor & the media focus on the Lions defence was bound to get a reaction at some stage.  Once again a team leapt out to an early lead against the Lions & then slackened off.  A good lesson – if you have significant doubts leave it alone!
 
Once again I was lured into a bet on a match I had intended to leave alone – Crusaders vs. Cheetahs.  With the Crusaders leading by 26-6 at halftime I was seduced by the Crusaders giving a 41.5 points start as I thought the Cheetahs would collapse.  Unfortunately they showed some resistance in the 3rd quarter of the match & the final margin was “only” 39 points.
 
So a very mixed weekend & overall a loss but thank goodness for the NRL & also the English Premiership, in particular Tottenham’s win. 
 
Let’s see what the next week has to offer.